


Daisy, daisy.

by rustywrites



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection, M/M, bluh bluh bullshit, sad dirks, talk about relationship stuff but it's mostly gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 14:39:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rustywrites/pseuds/rustywrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a bright light, bright enough to blind you even through your shades, and then there's pain, sharp and sweet and swelling like a wave crest crashing against a metal pylon. It hurts more than you anticipated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daisy, daisy.

**Author's Note:**

> _And if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones._  
>  'Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs.  
> Setting fire to our insides for fun  
> Collecting names of the lovers that went wrong  
> The lovers that went wrong.  
> \- Daughter 'Youth'. 

\-------------------------------------

 

It's not instantaneous, but you didn't really expect it to be. (You'd hoped, of course, but medical science can only tell you so much about, well...)

When the spinal cord is severed so abruptly, it takes the brain a moment to catch up. Just a second or two, before it realizes that it's already dead. 

You don't have time to be afraid. 

As you lower the box down over your head, you count. Timing is everything. Five, four – (Please, please) – three, two – (please) – One. 

There's a bright light, bright enough to blind you even through your shades, and then there's pain, sharp and sweet and swelling like a wave crest crashing against a metal pylon. It hurts more than you anticipated. 

Half a second, and your brain is a scrambled hard drive with a magnet attached to it, synapses firing at random and nerve endings bursting like super novas, baby galaxies dying and being born and then - 

And then there's nothing. 

Your last conscious thought might have been a prayer. 

You've never believed in god. 

(You don't want to die). 

– 

You wake up in parts, jigsawed together to form a whole, and then you wake up and you can't breathe. The air in your lungs feels heavy and it stings the moment it hits your eyes (maybe that's the dust). Ten deep breaths and you're light headed, fifteen and you're hands are starting to go numb. 

Twenty.

Remember the plan, remember the plan remember - 

Your vision is starting to grey out and your thoughts feel a million miles away by the time you make a suitable gas mask. You pull it over your head just in time. It catches your hair. The lenses fog as you exhale. You're more tired than you've ever been. There's laughter bubbling up from your chest; hives of wasps buzzing in your ears; flocks of birds pushing at your skin. 

You pass out, or maybe you just fall asleep. 

For the first time in a long time, the place behind your eyes isn't purple, it's just empty. You're not sure if you're comforted by that or not. 

\--

You start to gather up the pieces like a shipwreck survivor waking up on dry land, rushed and frantic and fumbling. But in your excitement, you put them back together all wrong. The words you planned on saying, scripted and perfect, come out sounding backwards and rushed and you have no idea what to do with your hands when you talk out loud. They feel so empty without a keyboard beneath them. 

Jake smiles and nods and stammers sometimes. You can tell you're making him uncomfortable, but there's too much happening behind your eyes and you feel uncorked when you're around him; words sloshing and spilling over out of your mouth in mixed up torrents. So much for that persona you've worked so hard to cultivate. So much for everything. 

He lets you kiss him and for a moment you don't even taste his lips because you're too busy choking on your own pulse in your throat to think about anything else. (Maybe when you took your head off, it never went back on properly. Maybe your wires are crossed even worse than they were before.) 

It's not a very good kiss, but neither of you are very good judges. You try and tell yourself that you'll get better. Practice makes perfect. But something in the way his grin pulls tight around the corners of his jaw makes you steel yourself for disappointment. 

–

The worst part isn't realizing that you've made a mistake, it's realizing all the things you could've done differently. 

An anger bubbles up inside at you but for the first time in your life you have no where to aim it; no empty expanse of ocean to swallow up your blame and carry it away; no sense of ultimate destiny or tragic fate to point a finger at. There's only you. You've been isolated for so long but now? Now you're alone with yourself and it's suffocating. 

A far away voice laughs about irony and crowded rooms and you clench your fists at your sides.

–

_Maybe you should try not hating yourself so god damn much._

_Fuck you. It's not that easy._

_I know._

The tinted glass begins to crack in your hands as you tighten your grip. Electricity laps at your fingers, spider-web sensations that remind you of salt water stings on split lips. 

You weren't trying to kill yourself when you lowered that box over your head, but maybe you are now. Maybe you came this far only to fail. 

_I'm scared._

You don't need to say 'me too'. You don't need to say anything at all.


End file.
